There has been quite a lot of discontent among Facebook marketers of late due to the apparent decline in news feed visibility. The more cynical among us believe this is Facebook’s way of coercing page admins to pay to promote their posts in order to get the same exposure they once enjoyed for free. Whether this is true or not, the Facebook news feed is becoming an increasingly competitive marketing space – meaning you need to fight to be seen.

So, how do you become a prominent fixture in users’ news feeds? First, you need to understand how Facebook decides which posts will show up and why:

EdgeRank

Gone are the good old days when most of your community would see your content. Now, an average of about 16-17% of fans will see each of your posts. [...]

If you are familiar with Pinterest, and Tumblr, then you know how much fun it can be to create a topical board filled with pictures, articles, and videos to share with family and friends. Each new picture that you find can be a source of amusement, and introspection. Plus, its a great way to discover other wonderful things on the internet. Combine the above with the ability to link those pictures to a website, and you have a marketers dream come true. Being able to easily create business related social media content [...]

Twitter just gave users a whole new way to share their favorite tweets. Rolling out over the next few weeks, Twitter.com will feature an option that allows users to share a tweet by email, even to recipients that aren’t Twitter members. [...]

My wife asked me today if something had changed at Facebook.

“I used to see a lot more posts from my friends about where they are, and what they are doing, and the basic comings and goings. I like that stuff, because I can easily keep up to speed with them. But I’m not seeing it as much lately.” [...]

We’re more than halfway through 2012. Just a few short years ago, many of us were trying to convince brands to invest more money and resources into social media. No more. Today, many brands are involved in some way on social platforms [...]